RE: [Almonaster-list] Restricting joining access to longterms

[Max A. F. <ma...@co...>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: alm...@li...
[mailto:almonaster-list-
> ad...@li...] On Behalf Of Jerome Zago
> Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2004 10:49
> To: alm...@li...
> Cc: Back Stabber
> Subject: Re: [Almonaster-list] Restricting joining access to longterms
>
> > I think the optional Email notification feature would
> > be nice to have, for those who would like it (myself
> > included for optional notify).  That might encourage
> > more people to join those games that are slow to fill.
>
> I would enable this feature by default (and it can be disabled in the
> profile).

Here's how I see it:

- An option on all empire profiles to be sent email when games begin.

- An admin option to make this the default for new empires.  I think it
would be off by default on my servers to save bandwidth.

- An advanced option on games (off by default) to require a valid email
address before entering the game.  These games would also send
notification on start, regardless of profile settings.

So Jerome would set this option on all the games he starts, and everyone
would be happy.  People who wanted to work around it would work around it.
Less people would join his games than otherwise, but the people who
wouldn't join aren't people Jerome wants to play with anyway.  I'm not
worried about people getting scared off, because Jerome's new games
probably wouldn't exist without the feature in the first place. 

Now, the risk with all these email-based features is spoofing.  That
option exists on the internet for plenty of things already.  The features
that I already had in place (resetting lost passwords, update
notifications and purge warnings) are somewhat interesting, and I doubt
anyone would use a spoofed email address so that someone else could see
his lost passwords.

Anyway, I don't have the time to implement any of this right now, but I'm
collecting the suggestions for when I get the chance to write an SMTP
library.  I'd welcome further refinements along these lines.